The growing season started late in South Australia due to cool spring weather, although conditions were generally frost and diseasefree. Early, very warm summer weather led to an early vintage, especially in northern inland areas, with excellent fruit quality across all regions. An outstanding vintage Bin 707 to challenge the great 707s of 1996 and 1990.

When Bin 707 was first released in the mid sixties, South Australian Cabernet Sauviguon viticulture had come of age, the varietal was seen as an important premium wine grape variety with a future, and Penfolds was keen for some of the action. Fruit was sourced from the Coonawarra, Padthaway, Kalimna and McLaren Vale. Maturation for fifteen months in new American oak. Alcohol 13.50% Acidity 6.60g/L pH 3.48.

TASTING NOTES

Deep, dark red, almost opaque. Concentrated creme de cassis and damson plums to the fore, with floral aromas in the background. Pure, with nicely integrated oak, acidity, and tannin, it cuts a broad swath across the palate. Nutty oak complexed by barrel ferment characters. An opulent, flamboyant wine with definitive varietal characters: exaggerated blueberry/ blackberry fruit, but without jamminess, layers of flavour, obvious but balanced oak and pronounced, chewy, ripe tannins. Impressively long in flavour, without reliance on alcohol.

Penfolds was founded by a young English doctor who migrated to one of his country's most distant colonies a century and a half ago

Dr Christopher Rawson Penfold was born in 1811, the youngest of 11 children. He studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, graduating in 1838. Like many doctors before and since, Dr Penfold had a firm belief in the medicinal value of wine. Before he left Britain he had obtained vine cuttings from the south of France and these were planted around the site of the modest stone cottage he built with his wife, Mary, at Magill on the outskirts of Adelaide in 1845. The couple called this house The Grange, after Mary's home in England. Penfolds»

WARNING Under the Liquor Control Reform Act 1998 it is an offence to supply alcohol to a person under the age of 18 years. The penalty exceeds $6,000
It is an offence for a person under the age of 18 years to purchase or receive liquor. The penalty exceeds $500. Liquor Licence 51409215